Friday, December 5, 2014

Two newsy items I came across recently got me wondering: In how many
languages do people in Charlotte worship God these days?I counted at least 20 – not a surprise when you consider how diverse our
faith community has become. And I bet some of you could add to my list. (And
hopefully will – see below.)Those two newsy items:

At 7 p.m. on Thursday (Dec. 11), thousands of Spanish-speaking Catholics are expected to converge on Bojangles
Coliseum, 2700 E. Independence Blvd., for the annual celebration of the feast
day of Our Lady of Guadalupe – or “Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.”

A Polish-language Mass will be
celebrated at 3 p.m. on Dec. 21 at St. Matthew Catholic Church, 8015 Ballantyne
Commons Parkway.

To be sure, most local houses of worship still send their prayers up to
“God.”But, all over town, the Supreme Being is increasingly invoked by other names:
“Dios” (in Spanish); “Gott” (German); “Elohim” and “Adonai” (Hebrew); “Allah”
(Arabic); “Deus” (Latin); “Bóg” (Polish); “Theos” (Greek); “Dieu” (French); and
many others.I consulted a few folks in town who chart Charlotte’s growing diversity –
including historian Tom Hanchett of the Levine Museum of the New South – and
came up with a list of the languages of worship in the Charlotte area:

The Catholic Diocese has parishes
where some or all of the Masses are in Spanish,
Vietnamese, Korean and Latin.
A few parishes periodically host Masses in other languages, including
Polish and Tagalog (from the Philippines).

Orthodox Christian churches have
services that are partly or totally said in Greek,
Russian, Serbian, Armenian
and Arabic.